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Blogs

Pushed to the brink
- how DWP benefit assessment practices contribute to the deterioration of claimants’ mental health, causing an increase in suicidal feelings.

Very welcome news from the membership

After the recent sad news concerning numerous closures of local groups, members shave shared some very welcome hope:

Trustee Peter Munn informed us about a group, located in Abergavenny (Wales) , which is the first NSUN connected venture in the devolved area - Peter would like to ask people to help him increase the visibility of this group, which he hopes is only the first of many to follow. You can sign Peter's
petition here

NSUN member John Knapp has compiled a very well researched dossier which has been enthusiastically received by Labour MP Peter Kyle. This dossier outlines the need for a primary care service which John believes Brighton and Hove council should set up. John's open letter to Brighton and Hove is
here.

NSUN manifesto promoted at events

Freelance Researcher Alison Faulkner also drew upon the manifesto when she spoke on Thursday at
at the Policy UK conference - 'A Revolution in Mental Health - A Year on from the Five Year Forward View'

Support NSUN as you shop online

We are a registered cause on the Giving Machine site. This means people can choose to raise money for us when they shop online. Simply click on theNSUN page then click the Join and Support this cause button. Donating this way does not increase the cost of your shopping.

Call for blogging contributors

Share experiences, suggestions and opinions with e-bulletin readers, website visitors and social media friends. To get an idea of the variety of topics and points of view, please visit our
blogs section. To send a blog, please email the editor.

Get introduced to NSUN in 3 Minutes

NSUN presentations

Last week NSUN was invited to present at two national conferences.

Dr Sarah Carr spoke at the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) annual general meeting (#baswagm17) in Liverpool 26 April and Dr Alison Faulkner
presented at the Policy-UK Forum event, 'A Revolution in Mental Health – A Year on from the Five Year Forward View: Ensuring Appropriate, Available and Accessible Services for All 27 April.

Both presented the Members' Manifesto 2017 and highlighted the struggles of the past and present, including the lack of investment in and disappearance of small user led groups.

You can also see below the Survivors Speak Out Charter 1987, shared by Patrick Wood (Sheffield). Interesting to compare this with our present Manifesto!

Important: non NSUN materials in the e-bulletin

Below NSUN news, features concern events, job opportunities, research, groups, etc, which are not ran by us, unless clearly stated. Details are sent to us by contacts who wish to spread word about their activities. Whenever possible we try to share materials which reflect the diversity (geographical and other) of an entire national network. We welcome suggestions and features by you, please email the editor
and the general info mailbox. Please remember that sharing is not endorsing.

BBC2 - Horizon 'Why did I go mad?'

Tuesday 2nd May, 9pm

Jaqui Dillon and Rai Waddingham will explore how for hundreds of years, psychiatry has treated voices and hallucinations as an enemy.
'Providing a rare first-hand insight into these experiences, they reveal just what it is like to live with them day to day. They examine the impact of social, biological and environmental influences on conditions traditionally associated with insanity, such as schizophrenia and psychosis, and within the film they look at how new ways of understanding the brain are leading to a dramatic change in treatments and approaches, and examine whether targeting the root causes of psychosis can lead to recovery. Above all, they try to uncover why it happened to them - and whether it could happen to you.'

Crowdfunding for Dolly Sen's DSM 69 project

Dolly Sen is a well known artist and activist working and exploring what it means to experience mental distress and the effercts of being labelled with a psychiatric diagnosis. Her art is witty, humorous, but also cutting and corusacting subtly getting under the skin of everyday psychiatric assumptions that leaves one feeling both wiser and nourished yet still in good humour. We are all the better for her art.

DSM69 is a small booklet, a notice of intent, containing a selection of Dolly's art and several manifestos. It is set at a reasonably low price and will be commerically available.

The Shoe Cake Comedy Club launch night in Stockton

A monthly Open Mic comedy night every 1st Thursday of the month. Open Mic spots available to New Comedians, Impressionists, Improv Groups, and Established Comics.

The audience will vote at the end of the night for their favourite comedian - who in turn will win the coveted ....'People's Parsnip Award'. A warm, friendly and encouraging environment for to all participants and audience members. If you fancy a go then send an email.

News ahead of the general election

No party has yet declared their position on benefits in the election campaign, but it is likely that both Universal Creditand PIP
will come up in future debates.

Online campaign calls on disabled people to affect election outcome

#CripTheVote is “geared towards both engaging the disability community in discussing the policies and politics that will most impact our lives but also to use our collective power to amplify the community’s voice on these issues”.

UKCP calls for next government to properly fund therapy services

The UK Council of Psychotherapy are calling upon campaigning parties to include mental health in their manifestos

We want to see a million extra adults and 500,000 extra children gain access to the services they need.

We also want to drive up quality, ending the current quick-fix approach to care. As a result, too many clients are currently stuck in a revolving door,
returning over and over because care wasn’t good enough first time round.

£1.5bn extra for psychotherapy and ring-fencing of the mental health budget

a 28 day waiting time target from referral request to first appointment

higher quality: more sessions, more choice, and properly trained staff

joined up services to stop people getting lost between child and adult care

Global mental health: practice and critique beyond the impasse

The last few years have seen an explosion of interest in mental health as a global issue, evident in the Movement for Global
Mental Health and the inclusion of mental health within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet this movement has not been without critics,who have questioned everything from the utility and validity of psychiatric diagnoses and their global export, to the coloniality of global mental health (Mills and Fernando,2014). This has led to ‘a hostile intellectual climate’ and an impasse within global mental health that makes dialogue across different camps difficult, if not impossible (Cooper, 2016).
This event aims to create a space for practice and critique to speak to each other, and
welcomes you to come and join in the debate.

Speakers include:

Derek Summerfield (Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry and an important critic of Global Mental Health).

Greg Harrison and Kim Parker (Partnership Coordinator and Clinical Lead fort he Gulu Partnership. The Gulu-Sheffield Partnership is a collection of organisations in Uganda and the UK who are working towards an aim of improving the support available to people with mental health problems in both cities. It is developing a two way learning process involving state provided services and voluntary organisations).

Jhilmil Breckenridge is a poet, writer and activist. She is the Founder and Managing Trustee of Bhor Foundation, a mental health charity in India working on inclusion, advocacy and using poetry as therapy.

This event is part of the Collaborative Network on Global Mental Health
(funded by Sheffield Institute for International Development) and will be facilitated by
China Mills (china.mills@sheffield.ac.uk).

No need to book – just turn up. Tea and coffee provided.

NHS mandate and mental health

The mandate
sets out the government’s objectives for NHS England, as well as its budget.

#NSUNthrive campaign

It is 10 years since the 'Doing it for ourselves’service user conference in Birmingham. It was at this conference in 2006 that the vision of the National Survivor User Network (NSUN) was taken forward, leading to funding in 2007 and becoming a fully independent organisation in May 2010.

We have survived! To enable us to continue to connect, communicate and influence, we need your help. Please spread the word to help raise funds to continue our work through our #NSUNthrive10 campaign. You can also raise money by shopping online with the Giving Machine